felt moment. i thought punctuated by the phrase-- which i think should be a hallmark card-- (laughter) "(bleep) yeah i'll marry you." (cheers and applause) beautiful. got you right here. got you right here. very exciting. and obviously they're canadian so their babies, i'm sure, will be gay socialists. (laughter) whatever it is canadians make up there. i don't know. (laughter) anyway, king abdullah, of course, he is in new york city for the u.n. general assembly, or, as we like to think of it, the reason i can't get to work because of traffic! (laughter) the event has s a gathering in the international juggalos. with libya in turmoil, syria in flames, iran on the verge of a nuclear weapon, an incredible opportunity for our president not just to address the world community but for some high-level pres-on-pres action. >> the white house says he has

no plans to have any private leadings with world leaders. >> jon: oh. (laughter) well, that's-- probably protocol. it's not the time for one-on-one meetings with other world leaders! >> our research shows it's been 20 years since a president has been to that meeting and not met one on one with a foreign leader. (audience reacts). >> jon: oh. (laughter) well, i guess if the world leaders would like to meet with him personally they can just donate $5 to his campaign and take their chances like the rest of us. (laughter) seriously. i'm sure there's a good reason why president obama's not going to be face to face with world leaders in these difficult and historic times. >> the president obviously has a busy schedule. he has a busy schedule all time. >> jon: yeah, he's got a busy schedule! (laughter) he can't just be meeting every world leader willy-nilly! (laughter) just because he's not meeting them face to face doesn't mean

he's not filled with high level strategic room defcon economic simulations. >> president obama will appear on "the view" this morning. (audience reacts) >> jon: moments like these in an election season that you would think would be crushing obama's reelection chances. and yet they are not. why, you ask? (laughter) it's the subject of tonight's news segment "barack obama's the luckiest dude on the planet." (laughter) in an ordinary election involving a stagnant economy, global unrest, and the typical incumbent president would be at an enormous disadvantage. unless-- >> does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million americans who don't have it today? >> well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance. we pick them up in an ambulance and take them to the hospital and give them care and different states have different ways of providing for that care. (laughter)

>> jon: unless-- normally he would be in trouble unless that incumbent president is running against the guy who just appeared to suggest that we don't need to do a health care plan for uninsured americans because we have emergency rooms! (laughter) and, like, they're open all night. (laughter) they're, like, 7-elevens but-- (cheers and applause) now that-- what he just said is an amazing and unappealing to -lsy statement which on its own would perhaps level the field for the incumbent president but apparently leveling the field isn't good enough for massachusetts mitt "up until i was running for president in the republican primary i believed fervently in the exact opposite of what i told cbs' skoept" romney, which is also a terrible nickname. >> look, it doesn't make sense for us to have millions and millions of people have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility.

when they show up at the hospital, they get care, they get free care paid for by you and me. if that's not a form of socialism, i don't know what is. (laughter) >> jon: the uninsured being cared for in emergency rooms is irresponsible and socialist and i am totally cool that. (laughter) that's how your state wants to deal with it. you see, whatever his missteps are as a candidate barack obama is surging in the polls because the closer we get to the election it is dumber mitt romney appears to be getting. (cheers and applause) here he is touting his economic plan-- settle down. really? is that how you want to win this thing? (laughter) the other guy just tears his a.c.l., is that how you want to win? (laughter) here's romney touting his economic plan at the start of this campaign last year. >> my economic plan lays out how i will ultimately get government to shrink, grow our economy,

balance our budget so that investors in new jobs and enterprises will have confidence in america. it's about 150 pages with 59 different policy ideas. >> jon: 59 policy ideas! 150 pages! 11 herbs and spices! 99 bottles of beer on the wall! now here he is touting his economic plan just eight months later. >> if we win on november 6, it will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. we'll see capital come back and we'll see-- without actually doing anything, we'll actually get a boost to the economy. (audience reacts) this is the businessman candidate! he's gone from having a 59 point economic plan to magic. (laughter) don't worry, all this country needs is a little shot of vitamin mitt. (applause) it's like he read "the secret." (laughter) i don't need a plan, let's just put positive vibes down the universe. (laughter) i swear to god, what is happening to romney? it's like he's charlie from "flowers for algernon."

(laughter) and the serum is wearing off. yes, read a (bleep)ing book! (laughter) (applause) really. you almost-- you almost heard the disappointment in the audience there. they just go "oh, i'm going to have to look that up. oh!" (laughter) here's romney making a defense of his low personal tax rate two months ago. >> my view is i have paid all the taxes required by law. i don't pay more than are legally due. and, frankly, if i had paid more than are legally due i don't think i'd be qualified to become president. >> jon: i mean, heck, if i overpaid my taxes who knows what else i'd overdo. instead of pardoning one turkey, i may pardon all the turkeys. (laughter) so anyhow, paying more than the legally required amount of taxes would disqualify one from the presidency. that was two months ago. flash to this weekend.

>> according to that 2011 return, romney donated $4 million to charity but only claimed a deduction of $2.25 million. he reduced his deduction and in essence paid more in taxes, the campaign said, to conform to his earlier estimate that he paid a 13% rate in 2011. >> jon: oh, charlie-- (laughter). oh, charlie. oh, charlie, you're fading on us, charlie! first we lost algernon and now you, charlie? (laughter) the election's around the corner and you can no longer complete a maze that just months earlier you designed yourself. (laughter) and whatever's happening to mitt romney, it is happening fast! >> i know that there are some people who believe that if you simply take from some and give to others we'll be better off. it's known as redistribution. it's never been the characteristic of america. a tape came out a couple days ago with the president saying yes, he believes in redistribution. i don't! >> jon: oh, come on, charlie.

(laughter) you can do this, charlie! remember? redistribution is socialism, charlie! you've got to remember! it's only been four days, charlie! >> so what i do in my medicare plan for younger people coming along is say this "we're going to have higher benefits for low-income people and lower benefits for high-income people." >> jon: that's (bleep)ing redistribution! (cheers and applause) that's what you just said! it's what you just-- don't you understand that? (cheers and applause) don't you get that? oh, right, you don't get that. (laughter) not anymore. (laughter) we ain't teaching mitt romney, mitt romney's teaching us. (laughter) so that's why president obama is the luckiest dude on the planet. although you have to wonder watching romney how the hell did this guy even get the nomination? >> it's three agencies of government when i get there that

are gone. >> we will have the first permanent base on the moon. >> commerce, education, and the-- um, what's the third one there? >> her little daughter took that-- took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation. >> commerce, education and-- um-- the um-- um-- >> okay, libya. president obama supported-- the uprising, correct? >> president obama wants to-- once said he wants everybody in america to go to college. what a snob! >> oops. >> jon: oh, right. that concludes our segment "mitt romney is the s.e.c.-luckiest dude on the planet." ears are weird.

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>> stephen: my guest tonights the 42nd president of the united states. the annual initiative quicks off this thursday, please welcome back to the program president bill clinton. (cheers and applause) >> thank you, thank you. >> jon: let me ask you, so

give any good speeches lately? or, how did that feel at the convention? could you tell that you were crushing it as you were doing it? did you feel that? >> yes and no but, you know, what i mean by that is i work so hard on that, for weeks and weeks and weeks. and then the white house designated bruce reed who worked for vice president biden now, and worked with me for eight years. >> jon: right. >> and worked with erskine bowles on that budget project to help me. and gene sperling, the national economics adviser who also worked with me for eight years came in and we worked the last day and a half after doing all this other work. and i was just determined to get the facts right and i, and to simplify the argument. >> right. >> without being simplistic. i didn't want to talk down to people. i wanted to explain what i thought was going on. >> jon: that's what was so stunning, i think, that was

why it was such a bracing speech. the phrase you mentioned earlier about getting the facts right. the idea that you would us use... you would use, in your argument, i know this is interesting, that you thought would you utilize in your artifacts. (laughter) >> jon: and they would have... you would attach numbers to them, that were real. i thought was a bold choice on your part. >> well, you know, we were talking before the show started, i think just forget about politics. think about any time in your life you have been confused or angry or frightened or resentful or anything, and you didn't know what was going on. in those moments explanation is way more important than el consequence. and rhetoric falls on deaf ears, so the only chance i have to get anybody to

really listen was to say, look, here is what i think happened. boom, boom, boom, boom. and one of my favorite responses came from a guy who said i'm a conservative republican, i never voted for clinton. i never even thought he was eloquent, but he treated me like a grown-up. and i appreciated that. because the american people are plenty smart enough to figure all this out. but you know, i have a wife with a traveling job so i'm home alone a lot. and... . >> jon: what does she do, what line of work is she in, that's interesting. >> depends on what day it is. but seriously, and i was president and i was a governor for 12 years and a grap well all kinds of economic challenges. and i have the time now to spend an hour or two a day trying to work this out. and yeah, you can get all kinds of information off the internet but you can't be sure if it is right or not. and there are all these dispar at facts out there. so what i fried to do is to

organize the information in a way i thought would be most helpful to people and make the arguments that i believe that persuade me that the course that the president is taking is better than the one advocated by governor romney. i tried to do it in a calm way without calling anybody any names or getting anybody mad. i thought they had been a little rough on him on that well fare and medicare rip they are on. so i had a little fun with that, but otherwise. >> jon: but that's what we were so surprised because people took to it in a manner as though you had brought high rhetoric from the mountain it was in its simplicity, i think, that is what... it was almost as though you brought something to people and they were eating it and they were like oh my god there sun real, i have never had it. and you are like, it's pizza. the simplicity of it... . >> i think the american people take this election seriously. they know they have to make

choices that will affect their lives. >> jon: uh-huh. >> and it's not very helpful if you take up their time and you don't explain what those choices are, at least from your point of view. so that's what i tried to do. >> jon: are you surprised, it has struck me that the romney campaign has been very year that they don't want to give the specifics of that choice. they have been given a chance time and time again. well, what loopholes would you close, well, you know, i will work that out after i'm elected. see me about that after the election. surprising with a guy of that kind of business experience that you are dealing in numbers and you would think specifics. >> well, part of the problem that he has is that... . >> jon: part of. >> yeah, he made all these commitments in the primary campaign. and you remember, and they just kept pushing everybody to the right. and so seemed like every week there was a new challenger coming up and he

was playing whack-a-mole, he had to knock them down. >> jon: very kind of you, even mole i think is actually... . >> in the course of that he wound up with a lot of commitments. so i mean, just think about, this debt is a terrible problem. he said that you know, and they ran that little debt clock up. well, it will be a problem when interest rate goes up if we don't, as i said if we don't deal with it, it will deal with us. and we won't like it, none of us, without regard to party. but if i come to you and i say we have this terrible national debt and here is my opening gambit, first thing i will do is increase it by 5 trillion dollars over a decade by doing another round of tax cuts, it mostly benefits the people that we benefiting in the last decade even though it didn't produce jobs. now we're in a really deep hole, much bigger than this clock i just showed you. now let me tell you how we're going to get out of it. well, what about the details. see me about that after the election.

>> right. i wanted to try to explain that in simple terms. no one else would do that. no one... unless you were being driven by ideology instead of by evidence, this is a practical country. we have ideals, we have philosophies. but the problem with any ideology is it gives the answer before you look at the evidence. so you have to mull the evidence to get the answer that you've already decided you've got to have. if doesn't work that way. building an economy, rebuilding an economy, is it hard, practical, nuts and bolts. >> jon: when we come back we will talk about the clinton global initiative. welcome back! my guest tonight is the reigning king of jordan. welcome back to the program king abdullaabdull abdullah ii.

(cheers and applause) thank you so much for being here again. i just wanted to let you know as an emissary of the united states our president, i know, was scheduled to meet with you today. (laughter) he was not doing a stupid t.v. show. (laughter) he was very busy with strategic-- meetings. (laughter) whoopi goldbergstan, i believe it is. >> i heard. >> jon: that the talk of-- you were at the u.n. today. does anyone-- is there any discussion amongst world leaders about the american president not being available for face-to-face meetings? is that not a-- is that upsetting? >> not that i heard, no. i think everybody's there preparing for their speeches and in side meets with other leaders. that was not an issue. >> jon: so we are, in fact, perhaps, in some respects blowing this out of proportion? >> most likely, probably. (laughter)

>> jon: although inside it does hurt a little bit, doesn't it? (laughter) how are things? you are neighbors with-- for some perspective with our audience who believe you're somewhere off the coast of bermuda-- (laughter). you are bordered by iraq, syria-- >> yes. >> jon: israel and saudi arabia. >> egypt. >> jon: and egypt. so how are things? (laughter) >> we've seen better days. >> jon: you run a constitutional monarchy. >> that's right. >> jon: in the middle of the largest democratic i don't want to say uprising but transition in your part of the world. what happens to you? how do you manage that without being deposed like some of these

other countries have had to deal with? >> jordan is part of the arab spring also. but the arab spring means something different to every country. different countries are going through different paces. you know, i keep saying that whatever the middle east is going through is going to be something that will take five, ten, 15 years and each country is going to have its own unique experiment of this. the republics have gone through a much tougher version of this than the monarchies, funny enough. but i hope this is something we all look back five, ten, 15 years from now and say that arab spring is a good thing. and i believe it is. so we all have to change. but the pace and meaning will be different for each count voy the problem sometimes in the united states is they say "how do we deal with the arab spring? there's no way to quantify that because for each country it means something different. >> jon: i think we like to have the idea-- arrogantly so-- that we are in control of this process.

the argument we have is "how could you let the brotherhood come to power in egypt, obama?" as though obama could go "i should have rigged that differently." (laughter) we have a sense that somehow we can control these events but even in that region, i imagine, there's a great deal of nervousness amongst the general ruling parties that have been-- you know, saudi arabia probably looks at jordan to see how you're doing. >> well, again, everybody country is looking at everybody else. but you've got to remember that arab spring started with a young man that burned himself and died because of the economy and arab spring started because of the economy as the whole world has s reacting to the economy. you had wall street over here and then it went from economic frustration to politics. young men throughout the middle east-- rightly so-- ask for political reform. what happened in a lot of countries as young men and women aspire to political reform, those organized like the muslim brotherhood, sort of hijacked the movement so in certain

countries when they went to the poll. >> jon: now how would they feel about that term in general? >> but in a way that's democracy because you're more organized. again, i think one of the examples-- about a year ago i was talking to a top british diplomat saying she was in cairo talking to a whole group of young egyptian politicians saying this is fantastic, we're organized, there's a chance to change our country and arab spring is wonderful for us. here's all of us with 70 parties coming together and she said that's the problem. you're 70 and they're one. but that's the process of democracy. >> jon: and you feel what will happen is there will be a consolidation and five or six parties then the more moderate voices will become stronger. >> you hope so. you've been doing it for 200 years. >> jon: and we have it really perfected. (laughter) >> well, it's worth a try. so in jordan still we have

elections at the end of the year. the difference between jordan and other countries is we changed the constitution. we changed a third of the constitution, we did a lot of things, and new inspect commissions for elections and then we had elections. all these other countries-- >> jon: you were laying a foundation. >> they went to elections and now have to change the constitution. the problem with egypt, libya, and tunis is they've got new governments in power but mandated to now change the constitution within a year and then go to elections again. but there's been a delay in actually changing the constitutions. >> jon: so it wasn't necessarily a managed transition and that could be slightly volatile. stphao. >> each country is going through different things so you can't prejudge these issues. >> jon: well, we'll talk a little bit more about where world war iii is going to start, who's going to start it. (laughter) and where i should hide. all right, we'll be back with all right, we'll be back with more from king

♪ no, i'm fine. can we do this again tomorrow?

anytime. i miss having my own room. what do you think? that's a little better. a little better? yeah. (laughing) this is my boyfriend, jamie. (ughhhhh! ) i don't feel at home here. i feel homesick. you chose-- ♪ love you. gotta go, dad. don't stay out too late, ok? bye, alligator. (laughing) it's see you later, alligator. in a while, crocodile. in a while, crocodile. i remember that.

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wilt come back, we're here about former president bill clinton. are you certain of, it's the clinton global initiative. how many years is this now. >> eight. >> here is what is going to be, you are going to there, president obama is going to be there. mitt romney is going to be there. condoleezza rice is going to be there. egyptian president mohammed morse sygoing to be there. how do you get knees people... what kind of food do you serve? how do you get a group like this together in cooperation to move forward? what's the pitch? >> and the leader of libya is going to be there. and the american people will hear from him that he really liked the american ambassador who was killed. and that they tried to save his life. and that he wants america to

stay there. >> jon: right. >> so there are a lot of interesting things. but we started doing this, they come because it's at the opening of the u.n.. a lot of them are going to be in new york. we invite them all to come. we invite many of them to participate. ellen general son turley, nobel prize winning president of liberia, a good friend of mine, she has been to a lot of our programs, a lot of these people come year in, year out. the secretary-general of the u.n. and president of the world bank dr. jim kim and the president of wal-mart are going to be there at the opening to talk about-- . >> jon: does he greet people as they walk in? >> no, he hires unemployed senior citizens like me to do that. but... . >> jon: all right, fair enough. >> but look, here's why he is coming. and i got him to change his schedule to come for this reason. wal-mart has deployed more

photo voltaics on their building than any other company in america. they are the number one solar company in america now. and they also run some of their buildings with wind energy. and they also have cut their packaging. and i want him to describe what i am trying to get people to think about, which is, most people make money and decide i want to do something good. that's a noble and good thing. they have decided instead to go back to square one and say what good do we want. we want to avoid the worst consequence of global warming. we want to cut our energy bill, we want to make it more predictable over the long run. how should we design our stores. how should we design our truck routes, how should we designed way we package our products from the beginning to get where we want to go in the end. we're trying to get people to think about, instead of fixing things when we get comfortable, how can we all at every income level, we're also flying nongovernmental groups in from some of the

poorest countries in the world to be a part of this debate. how do you have the maximum impact by thinking more about it in the beginning, how you are going to do something in the first place. that is what we are focus on this year. and it's really quite exciting. but even it is at the nexus of what the future of the partnership between government and ngos and private industry will be. and it's what you were talking about earlier, this idea that these are not an tag nis stick forces. they can be counterveiling forces but they must at some level be symbiotic. they must work together. >> let me give you an example of the places in america that are doing well. anybody here from san diego? san diego is... there you go. one of our great naval cities, and it still is. but it is also the center of human genome research in america. private sector, craig vinner was in a race in affect with the international gover